The impact of bottom-up strategies and social media to improve listening skills in English students. A study case.

Resumen

     Effective listening requires the implementation of specific strategies within a structured approach to enhance comprehension. Among these strategies, bottom-up approaches have proven beneficial in enhancing listening skills for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students. This research aimed to examine the impact of social media on teaching listening skills using bottom-up strategies, particularly in online classes. The study employed a predominantly descriptive and analytical approach, utilizing longitudinal data. The participant pool consisted of 200 university students at the A2 English Level, randomly divided into "bottom-up" and control groups. The sample included both male and female students aged 19 to 21 years, representing different grades. To conduct the study, a pre-test was administered to establish a baseline. Subsequently, a 4-week intervention was integrated into the class plans, incorporating bottom-up tasks utilizing social media materials on the Nearpod Platform. Finally, a post-test was conducted to evaluate improvements in listening competence. The collected data was analyzed using a two-tailed t-test, with information gathered from Nearpod. The results revealed significant differences between the control and experimental groups. The experimental group achieved higher scores in the post-test (8.34) compared to the control group (6.83), indicating the effectiveness of bottom-up strategies. Moreover, a notable improvement was observed in the experimental group when comparing the pre-test score (6.21) with the post-test results. These findings demonstrate that the implementation of focused listening strategies can enhance students' listening competence. We highly recommend exploring new strategies utilizing social media, as it aligns with students' present reliance on such platforms.